


Looking in From the Outside Again

by TaleWorthTelling



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Introspection, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, unfinished work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-17 23:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaleWorthTelling/pseuds/TaleWorthTelling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They didn't really consider themselves part of a team, but they all had their reasons for staying. Or leaving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking in From the Outside Again

**Author's Note:**

> I started this ages ago and had it planned out as a 10k story about the group moving into the tower and coming together as a team, based on this prompt: http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/6021.html?thread=9890949#t9890949. Basically where Steve goes off to find himself and his place in the world and everyone figures out their own place without him. And now I've completely forgotten what it was that I was going to do. So I'm posting it anyway as an open-ended standalone, but I may come back to this if inspiration strikes.

Steve could always be counted on to wander off, usually in search of some new way to be useful or some new damsel to rescue, like in the storybooks he was partial to, the ones Bucky had read to him, sounding out the words, when he shivered with fever. This was a constant. But more certain even than Steve's wanderlust was the surety that he would always return when Bucky needed him, even if Steve didn't always know quite why he was needed, not when he so often played the damsel to Bucky's knight.

Steve didn't understand until well after he'd dragged Bucky off of a table in Austria. He didn't understand until Bucky had confessed, dopey from morphine, that he'd never understood why everyone saw him as the knight. He took his role as Steve's protector seriously, yeah, but didn't Steve know that he kept Bucky good? That he made Bucky find the good in himself? That he had saved Bucky long before his journey into that HYDRA base?

Not knowing what to say to that, Steve said nothing, just smiled and squeezed Bucky's hand as he fell asleep. But he never forgot it.

-

Natasha played very well with others. She played well as she watched them, cataloging weaknesses, access points, and goals. She played especially well as she snuck up behind her targets, unbeknownst to them, and held their lives in her hands. She did these things for the good of others, to further their plans.

She saw herself very much as a team player. She had, after all, always been good at following orders.

She'd never believed in them, though. Never cared. Not until New York.

Her cover was blown now. She would never be a spy again, not really. That certainly did not mean that she had outlived her usefulness. Of course not. She existed to be used by others in some way. But it meant reinventing herself. After years of programming and more years under SHIELD's hierarchy, she didn't know if she could do that alone. There'd never been the choice for her, and her identity was something of a nebulous entity, even to her. Especially to her.

Tony Stark offered her a place to belong and she took it. Maybe she wanted to see what would happen.

-

Clint didn't like being alone, but he also knew that people were usually assholes. They were nice until they weren't. You could trust them right up until you couldn't -- right up until you could feel the tip of the knife in your back. He knew this, so he slept pretty well after a hard day's work -- sometimes a hard month's work on the really grueling missions -- of shooting people who couldn't see him. He was good at his job, and SHIELD let him do what he was good at. He liked that. And if maybe working for a secret international information-gathering/terrorist-squelching/alien-day-ruining organization made it a little hard to meet people to sit back and have a beer with? He could live with that. He was used to being alone. He was used to not getting what he wanted. But he figured everyone had a sob story and he wasn't special, so why mope about it?

Loki changed things. Loki changed him. Changed his mind, his history, his standing with SHIELD -- his ability to do that job where he didn't consider the implications of his actions and still slept fine. Now he wasn't just that kid whose drunk dad smacked him around; they were a dime a dozen and he'd made peace with his scars. Not just that orphaned circus freak, betrayed by his mentors and abandoned by the only family he had left; admittedly more soap opera in the specifics, but nothing that didn't make him stronger with the knowledge that it still could have been a lot worse and he'd made it out alive.

No.

Now he was fairly certain that the scope of this experience could be shared by very few. There was no pride to be had in surviving this, only a private shame and contrition that it had happened. That he had let it happen. He had been used before, he could admit, but never had he so thoroughly been rendered helpless, reduced to his barest assets and darkest parts and set on people he couldn't be sure deserved it. Some he knew hadn't. He'd done bad things before, but he'd never thought they'd made him bad, left their mark on him.

Sometimes, on the cusp of sleep, he thought he could feel Loki sifting through his thoughts, like a pull on tissue not yet healed and scarring badly. Marked.

SHIELD didn't trust him. He couldn’t blame them. He didn't trust himself, realistically, and SHIELD's credit extended only so far.

So that was out. Compromised. And after so long as who he had been, doing what he had, he wasn't sure he could go back to being that other guy, the one who showed off for crowds and begged for attention, or even the survivor, who huddled in closets and glared at social workers and kept moving. Normal was out.

What's second best to normal but a penthouse view of Manhattan in between fighting monsters in the streets and fighting monsters in his head? Besides, Stark probably got a thousand channels. He certainly wasn't taking Stark up on his offer to get out of the cold, to not be alone. It was just that ... he wouldn't be alone. And since he knew that he couldn't trust himself anymore, knew that just because he had eyes on everything didn't mean he was seeing it all and connecting the dots, he thought that might be better.

-

Bruce knew that he had many reasons to hate the other guy. The Hulk had systematically destroyed the life he had been clinging to with both hands. Had revealed the ugliness inside of him that he had thought buried. Turned him inside out, made him an animal, pitted him against everything he understood to be logical and rational. Epitomized his fears. But, really, he hated the other guy mostly for the one reason, the one that always came back around: Hulk had taken his ability to hide, make himself small and keep out of sight. He was on everyone's radar now. He had only ever wanted to be left alone, even as a child. No real chance of that now. Those years on the run, that was only putting off the inevitable.

Really, he was too smart to believe that it could last forever, and too tired of running to even care much. He'd be lying to not admit that the battle of Manhattan had felt ... good. What he remembered of it. He wanted to say that it was terrible, that he was terrified and horrified and all those other things that the people on the news were saying, but he just wasn't like them. When he had unleashed the Hulk ... it was a release. Freedom. 

And Hulk had done good, in his own way. 

Bruce couldn't go back to life on the run. Not now that he'd found this. But he was still dangerous, still a spark in a dynamite factory waiting to happen. He couldn't do it by himself anymore. Nonetheless, he wasn't a planner or an executor. He was a scientist. He stuck to his area, picked up what he had needed to in order to survive, but the bigger picture had always eluded him, as his current predicament proved. He was a piece of a puzzle, assembled by a patient hand and clever eye, but not enough on his own. He would do what he had to so he could help. He just needed a guiding hand.

And in the meantime, Tony Stark had offered him some pretty jaw-dropping research facilities. He could tell that Tony was another who had been alone for far too long, even if no one else seemed to notice.

-

After countless centuries of courting glory and building myth, Thor had learned a great deal in a very short time. He had learned his patience was too short, his heart too bold, his trust misplaced. These lessons were hard won and he would not soon forget them. One day, when he was king of Asgard, he would think of these days and know truly the meaning of power, of how not to rule, but to lead.

That day, however, was not now. He was now but a prince with an eye on the horizon. In this world, he was a stranger, little more than a curious oddity with peculiar customs and a fearsome battle cry. He was not of their ilk, and as such could no more lead them than the ocean could lead the sky. They reflected, but could not touch.

Still, he saw great things in Midgard. He embraced the challenge. When he was ready, he would return to Asgard a better man, as he had before. Until then he would continue to fight for the people of this strange new world, for their chance to break through their cloud of cynicism and see their land with fresh eyes as he had, see the beauty that it could hold. For the ones who saw the same, but quietly. For Jane.

He was not ready to rule, could not yet inspire loyalty and trust no longer freely given, and this was not his kingdom. But though he had not been a fast learner in the past, he was now a willing student. All that Midgard had to offer would be his, should he choose to listen.

His companions would see him through his trials, and he theirs.

-

Tony fucking Stark was not lonely. He had money, women, and robots. And power. But power didn't keep him warm at night like the first three things (except in certain ultra-specific roleplay scenarios). He also definitely didn't do that whole teamwork thing. He hadn't done it in school when people had told him to give other kids a chance to answer the questions, hadn't done it when the government had wanted him to play nice and bend over, and he didn't really think he had done it during the whole Chitauri thing. He was pretty sure he had rocked that one out of the atmosphere and into another dimension. Sure, there had been some full-band interplay, but in the end he had ventured singlehandedly into space. Had he not made it back through the portal, he would have died alone. It was a hard thing to forget. It was a hard thing to make himself forget.

So he didn't. He remembered it like a white noise, always there when he stopped talking (which, admittedly, didn't happen very often). And with that in mind, he really didn't think he could be judged for opening his home to a few other totally-not-lonely loners who might need a place to crash sometimes. He was generous like that. It didn't necessarily mean he was committing to this thing longterm, or even to listening to anybody at all, but he had sort of gotten fond of those weirdos after risking his life alongside them. 

He'd always been a bit weird, after all. Takes one to know one. Or five.

-  
"What do you mean, see the world? You marched all over Europe. How much more of the world do you need to see?"

Steve raised his eyebrows, but didn't look up from the maps he was combing through. "That was different. And it was a long time ago, they tell me. My mission is complete. I've been formally discharged. I'd like to see the country I've been informed my supposed legacy shaped."

Tony silently cocked his head to the side, arms crossed, staring at Steve like a troublesome equation he knew he could solve.

"So ... road trip?" Clint continued snooping around Steve's apartment, rifling through mostly empty drawers and acquainting himself with the layout like there was going to be a test. "Then you'll come home and figuratively punch Hitler in the face, right?"

Steve continued marking the maps, his jaw tightening. "Yes. I'll come back here." 

It was clear as day, though, that this wasn't home anymore. Clint winced. "And, y'know, the punching part?"

Finally, Steve pushed away from the table and sighed. He turned around, leaning back against the table, and stared. For a moment he didn't speak. When he did, he dropped his gaze. "It seems to me that Captain America has served long enough, longer than I could ever have dreamed. I can't imagine you'd find much use for me. The invasion, that was a big thing. I couldn't have lived with myself if I hadn't done something. But that's not every day. And my war ended a long time ago. It may be hard for you to understand, but now punching people is the only familiar thing I have. Everything has changed but all the different ways I know to kill a man. I just need something else to hold on to, and right now it's not here."

"You mean being reduced to nothing but your ability to be weaponized?" Clint ventured idly, not putting nearly the emotion into the words that he felt just thinking it. His heart beat a little faster, but his face was blank and his hands were steady. He shrugged. "Nah, you're right, I wouldn't understand that. And Stark here, people hound him for his cobbler recipe."

Steve looked at Clint apologetically. "It wasn't your fault, Clint," he said, sure as day. "And I will come back. I can't just ignore a situation when I know that I can help. If I'm needed, I'll be there. I just ... don't know that you'll need me anymore."

"Bullshit," Tony snapped. "You're Captain America. Don't hide behind that man out of time thing. The impossible is what you do."

Steve squared his shoulders. "Yesterday I was on the frontlines of new technology, surrounded by men forging the future. Today it's all sitting in war museums collecting dust. It's been replaced by more efficient things."

"If this is about cellphones and the Internet and all that jazz," Tony continued, tone bright and pleasant but gaze hard, "I say you're full of it. Don't get me wrong, I want to watch you stumble onto some interracial midget amputee porn as much as the next guy, but you seem to have a handle on the technology angle. You don't even flinch when JARVIS talks to you, and even people from this century have trouble with that. You're still on the frontlines of new technology, that's the point. All the tech is just icing on the cake when it comes down to it. Strip it away, and you're just left with people, and they don't change. And that's coming from Tony Stark himself. The tech isn't your problem."

"Then maybe it's personal," Steve bit out, losing patience. "I've been fighting for a long time. I'm not saying I've given up. I'm just..."

"Reminding yourself what you've been fighting for?" Clint asked quietly.

"When you put it like that," Steve said, "it sounds cynical."

"Even Captain America is allowed to be a little cynical." Clint smiled, strained though it was, and hoped Steve didn't notice the dark circles under his eyes. If anyone deserved the right to a little cynicism, it was probably Steve.

Tony snorted. "Well, I guess that that's it, then. See you after the honeymoon, sweetie." And then he walked out of Steve's tiny Brooklyn apartment and went back to being Tony fucking Stark, the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, and not Tony Stark, the man who had worshipped Captain America as a little boy, hated him for a little while as an adult, and then remembered why he had looked up to him, only to be reminded that even your heroes bleed red. 

"Take all the time you need, Cap," Clint assured. "I know you'll be back. Stark's getting his panties in a twist over something else, probably, and taking it out on you. He'll get over it. He is Iron Man, after all." He couldn't quite say that he had faith in Steve because Steve had had faith in him. He wasn't sure whether he hoped Steve realized that anyway, or whether that was too vulnerable a spot to share.

Steve laughed. It wasn't much, but it was something different from the sighing and the stoicism and the quiet acceptance of his obsolescence. "I'm used to being on the outside looking in. I'll right myself. I'm not that easy to knock around."

"Well, we'll be waiting."

-

"So he just ... left?"

"He didn't just leave. He left a cellphone number."

Natasha glared. 

Clint held up his hands. "And may have mentioned something about avoiding any USO tour stops, some museums he thought about visiting. That kind of thing."

Natasha looked back at her paint roller, dripping with sky blue, and said nothing.

"Life is short, Tash," Clint continued. He rubbed his nose, then realized there was paint on his hand, now on his face. He frowned, rubbing at it some more. "Nobody knows that better than he does. He should do what he wants."

"And what do you want to do?" Without looking, Natasha held out a clean rag.

He glanced skeptically at her hand, then shrugged and took the rag. "We're not talking about me. How about we talk about you? Why the new paint job, for starters?"

"I'm figuring out what I like. Right now I'm discovering whether I like sky blue paint on my walls."

"You better like it. I've just spent the last three hours painting and I'm covered in the stuff."

"It's calming. You want to work for SHIELD again, don't you?"

The rag was rough under the pads of his fingers as he worried it between them. He said nothing until it became apparent that Natasha was done holding up her end of the conversation without suitable encouragement. "I want to be where I can do the most good. I have a lot to answer for. Not sure if SHIELD is the place to do that. Opened my eyes, y'know? And, anyway, they can't take me back. Not for anything serious."

"You don't know that," Natasha soothed. "Fury doesn't write off assets until they're well and truly toxic. If he really didn't trust you, you'd be locked in a trunk somewhere in the Baltics."

"Enticing." 

"You know what I mean. There's still a place for you to do some good. It just depends on what kind of good you want to do."

"I did what I thought was good for a long time. Most of it turned out to be the gray, fuzzy kind. Not so big on fuzziness these days."

"Then do the obvious kind for a while. Rescue a kitten from a tree."

Clint snorted. "You're not exactly barking up SHIELD's tree, y'know? What happened to being Fury's cheerleader?"

Natasha focused on smoothing a loose piece of painter's tape. "I'm no longer an agent in my field. The world knows who I am."

"I don't even know who you are. And you don't even know if you like blue."

"I like this blue. I've decided. It's staying."

"Great. But seriously."

"Seriously. I'll figure something out. I'm pretty handy kicking alien ass."

"And I do love that about you."

-

"So Mighty Morphin' Spandex flew the coop yesterday," Tony announced.

Bruce looked up from his microscope. "Steve left already?"

"Didn't get the memo? Yeah, apparently Mr. Paragon of Virtue isn't as considerate as his golden blond hair and dazzling bond poster smile would have you believe."

"You've disappeared before. I've disappeared before."

"I have a reputation to uphold and you have a condition. A growling, smashing, rather alluring shade of green condition."

Bruce shrugged. "I've been lurking around India for years. I'm hardly in a position to judge."

"Whatever. We'll do fine without him."

Bruce looked doubtful.


End file.
